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Q: Does the county clerk really belong in executive sessions of the county commissioners court? The county judge or any of our four county commissioners could push the button to start and stop the tape recorder in an executive session. Besides, our voters didn’t elect the county clerk to take part in budget and policy decisions.

It was a recent Saturday morning, and Facebook cheerfully informed me that it was Suzanne Bardwell’s birthday.
So I messaged best birthday wishes to my fellow alumna from East Texas State University (now Texas A&M-Commerce) and co-owner of the Gladewater Mirror.
“Thanks Pat . . . my party is a scrimmage, a community prayer meeting and a museum event!” she responded.
All of which got me to thinking about college football coaching legend Paul “Bear” Bryant and a little slip of paper found in his billfold when he died in 1982.

A webinar scheduled Sept. 20 focuses on how to verify photos and videos that may be fake.
Most fake photos and videos can be checked quite quickly, allowing journalists and researchers to stop the spread of so-called “fake news” before it gets onto their Facebook feeds.

Experienced journalists use research to ground their work and fact-check claims made by politicians, policymakers and others. Many journalists, however, are not trained in research methods and statistical analysis. Some have difficulty differentiating between a quality study and a questionable one.
Click here to see the full tip sheet.

The unemployment rate gets most of the attention, but the monthly jobs report contains lots of other data that can provide a fuller picture of the economy.
Simply being out of work isn’t enough for a person to be counted as unemployed; he or she also has to be available to work and actively looking for work (or on temporary layoff). In any given month, the unemployment rate can rise or fall based not just on how many people find or lose jobs, but on how many join or leave the active labor force.

Munis, as they’re known, enable a state, county, city, housing authority or other local government to raise money for public projects — usually infrastructure. But unlike the bonds private firms sell to raise cash, the interest is free from federal income tax, meaning, in effect, that munis are federally subsidized. They are also often exempt from local taxes. These tax benefits allow issuers (also known as borrowers) to attract investors at lower rates; in financial parlance, it makes borrowing cheaper for local governments.

As part of newspaper in Education offerings, author Janie Lancaster has written a historical fiction serial story of Opal Fleming and how, as a small girl in the 1930s, learning American Sign Language opened up a whole new world for her. How her new language made her feel equal to others and not left out and in a dark lonely world.
Opal’s resilient spirit overcame so much in her lifetime. She became a well educated, dignified person loved by so many. For 20 years she was a teacher’s aide at the North Carolina School for the Deaf. She died in 2003.

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The association promotes the welfare of Texas newspapers, encourages higher standards of journalism, and plays an important role in protecting the public’s right to know as an advocate of First Amendment liberties.